During the 2020 NFL Draft, ESPN got personal with all of the draftees in their “Get to Know” graphics. However, they may have gotten too personal with Tee Higgins.

Higgins was being drafted 33rd overall by the Cincinnati Bengals when the graphic was shown. Underneath his hometown, info about his basketball history and noting that his sister plays college basketball was a fact about his mother. It highlights his mother, Camillia’s 16-year drug addiction.

Viewers took to social media to question why ESPN would include something so personal on national television. However, Higgins himself did not mind. The player responded on Twitter saying, “I’m proud of my mom for turning her life around for me and my sister! I have no problem with them showing the world that my mom is a true fighter.”

ESPN still decided to apologize to The Washington Post and say the comment “should not have aired.”

https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/nfl-draft-espn-sorry-for-tee-higgins-graphic-that-caused-stir/

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the sports world to be put on hold, so ESPN has asked their commentators to take a pay cut over the next three months. This cut would affect around 100 of the network’s highest-paid commentators.

The network had not disclosed which of its commentators have agreed to take the 15% pay cut. These measures are made to prevent further furloughs at the network.

The network has experienced a large hit due to the suspension of the NBA, the NCAA men and women’s college basketball tournament — better known as March Madness, and MLB opening day. However, the 2020 NFL Draft brought a large crowd to the network. Also, they decided to air the highly anticipated Michael Jordan documentary, “The Last Dance,” that was originally set to air in June.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/media/espn-pay-cut/index.html

HBO Max now has an official launch date of May 27, 2020. The service will join the streaming world with a large variety of choices to watch from. HBO Max will contain around 10,000 hours of content from WarnerMedia brands including HBO and Warner Bros. films. It will also have shows like “Rick and Morty,” “Friends,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and “Pretty Little Liars.” HBO Max will also have a variety of TNT and TBS series.

A new series, “Max Originals” which will feature a scripted comedy starring Anna Kendrick called, “Love Life” and “The Not Too Late Show with Elmo.”

The service will cost $14.99 a month, which is more expensive than its competitors. HBO Max will cost twice as much as Disney+ and a few dollars more than Netflix’s standard plan. It will be arriving during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it has the potential to be the next service to experience a surge of users.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/media/hbo-max-launch-date/index.html

This week Disney furloughed as many as 100,000 workers due to COVID-19. Many of these furloughs are from the parks, however some are from the movie studio and TV division. They plan on paying 100% of health insurance costs for their workers that are currently covered for as long as 12 months.

Several other large media companies face similar goals and challenges as Disney, such as Comcast and AT&T. AT&T’s market cap is $222 billion, Comcast’s is $169 billion and Disney’s is $185 billion. The situations they share are that they all have movie studios that are suffering from the closure of theaters because of COVID-19 and they are all working towards the cord-cutting trend.

However, parks and resorts are Disney’s largest division, bringing in 35% of their revenue last year. AT&T has no affiliations with a park and Comcast only derives 5.4% of their revenue from parks. These companies are not forced to furlough the drastic amount of employees as Disney does because of the parks closures.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/20/why-disney-is-furloughing-workers-and-the-other-media-giants-arent.html

While Facebook may have increased engagement, the company is seeing a decrease in their advertisement business, especially in countries that are taking measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

In a blog post titled, “Keeping Our Services Stable and Reliable During the COVID-19 Outbreak,” Facebook said, “As the pandemic expands and more people practice physically distancing themselves from one another, this has also meant that many more people are using our apps.” While the company is experiencing a growth of usage and engagement, they cannot say the same about their advertisement revenue. The company added, “We don’t monetize many of the services where we’re seeing increased engagement, and we’ve seen a weakening in our ads business in countries taking aggressive actions to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”

After this news was revealed, Facebook’s stock took a slight drop after a recent 8% increase.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/24/facebook-seeing-weakening-in-ads-business-in-countries-hit-by-covid-19.html

Today, YouTube announced the upcoming release of ten scripted, unscripted and live series that will debut from now until early June.

These shows include Money Talks: Taxes, a series produced by Refinery29 about handling the Covid-19 stimulus check and money management. Another show is Stay Home With YungBlud, a weekly episodic series following the artist as he is quarantined with his bandmates and friends. Third is #MoveWithMe, a global dance event to celebrate on International Dance Day on April 29.

Many YouTube original series were disrupted in production delays and shutdowns due to COVID-19, so they chose this route. All of the shows will be available to watch free, with advertisements.

As the 2020 NFL Draft came to a close this evening, four Temple Owls have watched their dreams turn into reality.

As the 78th overall pick in the draft, Hennessy was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons. Hennessy bypassed his senior year at Temple to enter the draft as a 6-foot-4 and 307 pound center. In the 2019-2020 season, Hennessy was a third-team Associated Press All-American and a first-team selection in the American Athletic Conference.

As the 169th overall pick in the draft, the Minnesota Vikings selected Harrison Hand. Hand began his collegiate football career at Baylor under former Temple coach Matt Rhule. After two seasons for the Bears, Hand elected to transfer to Temple for his third and final season.

As the 196th overall pick in the draft, the Philadelphia Eagles selected linebacker, Shaun Bradley. Bradley’s locker room will be a few steps away from his old one, as he will be playing in the same stadium he played in for his entire collegiate career.

As the 241st pick in the draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Chapelle Russell. Russell suffered from two consecutive ACL tears during his collegiate career, yet made up for his time off during the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

In addition to the four draft picks, Dana Levine was signed to the New York Giants and Isaiah Wright was signed to the Washington Redskins.

Usually a haven for music videos, vlogs, and prank videos, the current trending pages of YouTube would be very confusing to explain to someone from about three months ago. With everyone locked in their houses many are taking to the platform seeking out many new types of videos. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki chimed in saying, “‘We certainly have seen how our users have changed’ (Stelter, 2020).” Recent searches have been reflecting the ongoing events surrounding COVID-19 with searches about hand washing, quarantine hair cuts, and at home exercises. These videos have been hitting millions of view which would not have ever happened with out the current conditions of the world.

According to Nielsen, YouTube usage has skyrocketed with streaming viewing doubling and YouTube accounting for 20% of streaming minutes. There has been 32 billion minutes worth of YouTube streaming compared to 15 billion minutes in the previous year (Stelter, 2020). Along with basic entertainment videos, YouTube is also working with health professionals and WHO to make sure accurate content is posted to the platform. Any misinformation would violate YouTube health policies. Many adjustments have been made in order to cope with the changing times, and YouTube is seeing that through the shift in it’s current trends.

With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down all aspects of the current and upcoming sports seasons, the NFL draft has been the only thing that sports fans have been looking forward to. Last night, the NFL draft hit its own record numbers as viewership from deprived sports fans went through the roof. The outbreak has put the NBA, MLB, and NHL on hold leaving sports fans with little to nothing to fill the sports void left in their televisions. Despite its usual airing on sports networks like ESPN, NFL Network, and ESPN Deportes, the draft has also found it way to have its own slot on ABC. Up 37% from the previous year, the program averaged about 15.6 million viewers. This high rating breaking the draft viewing record previously belonging to the 2014 draft with 12.4 million viewers. These viewers tuned into a program filled with “…players, coaches, general managers, analysts and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell broadcast[ing] from their homes…including more than 100 camera feeds (Pallotta, 2020).”

With much of the population having to stay at home during this pandemic, TV viewership is bound to reach some unexpected highs. ESPN also aired “The Last Dance”, a docuseries about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, reaching 6.1 million viewers. Not only was this years draft the most viewed ever, but so was “The Last Dance” as ESPN most viewed documentary ever.

After four long year, Park and Recreation is finally returning for a reunion special, however, I wish it were under better circumstances. Returning in this special are cast members Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, Retta, Rob Lowe, Chris Pratt Aziz Ansari, Jim O’heir and of course, Amy Poehler. Airing on April 30th at 8:30pm on NBC, “The episode is based on the present day pandemic and will follow Leslie Knope as she attempts to stay connected with her former Pawnee Parks Department co-workers in the age of social distancing…(Cohen, 2020).” The news of this spread on social media as some of the stars began posting about it on Instagram. Chris Pratt saying that “it’s the greatest episode of television to ever be filmed in quarantine (Cohen, 2020).” This of course being due to the fact that this episode has been filmed in its entirety in the actor’s own homes.

Executive producer Michael Shur, also known for shows like The Good Place and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, thought that this might be a great way to help raise money for a good cause. All donations are going towards Feeding America, who have set up a COVID-19 fund to help the food bank to be able to support those in need. State Farm and Subaru have already made donations of $150,000 and the NBCUniversal writers, producers, and cast of Parks and Recreation a collective total of $500,000.